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Apocadocument
Weekly Archives:
Aug 30 - Sep 6, 2010
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DocWatch Rights of Nature
When Ecuador leads, who will follow?
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Fri, Aug 20, 2010
from PhysOrg:
Scientists map and confirm BP origin of large, underwater hydrocarbon plume in Gulf
Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have detected a plume of hydrocarbons that is at least 22 miles long and more than 3,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, a residue of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. In the study, which appears in the Aug. 19 issue of the journal Science, the researchers measured distinguishing petroleum hydrocarbons in the plume and, using them as an investigative tool, determined that the source of the plume could not have been natural oil seeps but had to have come from the blown out well.
Moreover, they reported that deep-sea microbes were degrading the plume relatively slowly, and that it was possible that the 1.2-mile-wide, 650-foot-high plume had and will persist for some time.... The levels and distributions of the petroleum hydrocarbons show that "the plume is not caused by natural [oil] seeps" in the Gulf of Mexico, Camilli added.... The plume has shown that the oil already "is persisting for longer periods than we would have expected," Camilli said. "Many people speculated that subsurface oil droplets were being easily biodegraded.
"Well, we didn't find that. We found it was still there."... Reddy said the WHOI team members know the chemical makeup of some of the plume, but not all of it. Gas chromatographic analysis of plume samples confirm the existence of benzene, toluene, ethybenzene, and total xylenes—together, called BTEX at concentrations in excess of 50 micrograms per liter. “The plume is not pure oil,” Camilli said. “But there are oil compounds in there.” ...
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A "plume" is too pretty. How about we call it a "massive man-made storm of ocean toxicity"?
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Wed, Aug 4, 2010
from Guardian:
Ecuador signs $3.6bn deal not to exploit oil-rich Amazon reserve
Ecuador, home of the Galapagos Islands, the Andes mountain range and vast tracts of oil-rich rainforest, yesterday asked the world for $3.6bn not to exploit the Ishpingo-Tiputini-Tambococha oil block in the Yasuni national park. A knockdown price, it said, considering the oil alone is worth more than $7bn at today's prices. The 407m tonnes of CO2 that would be generated by burning it could sell for over $5bn in the global carbon markets.
But neither the oil block nor the park is for sale, and under the terms of a unique, legally binding trust fund set up yesterday by the government and the UN, the oil and the timber in Yasuni will never be exploited.
Instead, donor countries, philanthropists and individuals around the world are being invited to pay the money in return for a non-exploitation guarantee.... Conservation groups have been staggered by the biological riches in the park, which is situated at the intersection of the Amazon, the Andes and the equator. It was recently found to have 650 species of tree and shrub within a single hectare - the highest number in the world and more than in the whole of north America. In addition, it has more than 20 threatened mammal species, including, jaguars, otters and monkeys, and several hundred bird species. ...
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Yeah, but are any of those trees and shrubs valuable?
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Tue, Jun 8, 2010
from CBC:
Humpback whales form lasting friendships
Female humpback whales appear to form lasting friendships, with pairs searching out each other every summer in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, a finding scientists say shows they are more social than previously thought.
The discovery may also mean that commercial whaling breaks apart long-established social groups.
The whales spend most of the year on their own while they migrate, coming together with males only briefly to breed. But the females return to the Gulf each summer, pairing up with the same female each time, says Christian Ramp, a researcher with the Mingan Island Cetacean Study, a non-profit marine research organization in St. Lambert, Que....
Until now, baleen whales were not thought to be particularly social, but this most recent research shows humpback friendships lasting as long as six years.... The researchers say the most likely explanation for the annual gathering is co-operation in finding food, which might explain why females "with the most stable and long-term associations also had the highest reproductive output," the researchers write.
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Hey, Japan and Iceland -- how about we "scientifically" murder a few females to see how sad their friends get?
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Thu, Mar 25, 2010
from New Scientist:
Petropolis: Filming Canada's tar sands
Canadian media artist and filmmaker Peter Mettler aerially filmed the tar sands of Alberta, Canada from a helicopter to highlight the vast scope and impact that the industrial mining site has on the environment. The result is his new film, Petropolis, which screens tomorrow evening at the Flatpack Festival in Birmingham, UK.
The mining area of the tar sands is as big as all of England and the tar sands oil production releases five times more greenhouse gases than conventional oil production.
As Mettler explains, getting the oil out of the tar sands uses roughly as much water as a city of two million people. Afterwards, 90 per cent of this water is so contaminated with toxic chemicals that it must be stored in tailings ponds so huge that they can be seen from outer space. ...
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I'm not liking the visible hand of the marketplace.
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Thu, Mar 18, 2010
from New York Times:
Alaskan Aerial Wolf Hunt Begins
State employees began an aerial wolf hunt on the Yukon border on Tuesday in what officials describe as an effort to preserve caribou for shooting by hunters. Officials at the adjacent Yukon-Charlie Rivers National Preserve argued against the hunt, saying that the wolves have had a particularly hard winter and need to recover. The state plans to kill as much as 80 percent of the local wolf population in the next week, or 185 wolves; there are an estimated 46,500 caribou. Since 2006 the state has regularly granted hunting licenses or assumed the task itself in planes or helicopters. ...
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You betcha.
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Fri, Feb 12, 2010
from Mongabay:
Expedition to save world's rarest cetacean threatened by lack of funding
Little known beyond the waters of the Gulf of California, the world's smallest cetacean (a group including whales, dolphins, and porpoises) is hanging on by a thread. The vaquita—which in Spanish means 'little cow'—has recently gained the dubious distinction of not only being the world's smallest cetacean, but the also the world's rarest. In 2006 it was announced that the Yangtze river dolphin, or baiji, was likely extinct, and conservationists fear the Critically Endangered 'little cow' is next. An expedition for this year is set to identify vaquita individuals, but even this is threatened by lack of funding.
Tobias Nowlan, a member of the proposed expedition, told mongabay.com that the situation was dire with only 100 individual vaquitas left in the world. The vaquita lives in what Nowlan calls "the most restricted range of any marine mammal", inhabiting about 2,500 square kilometers of the Gulf of California. As far as researchers know the vaquita is threatened by one thing and one thing only: gillnets used to catch the local fish totoaba (which is also considered Critically Endangered).
"The vaquita has declined dramatically as a result of bycatch in gillnets. A gillnet ban is now in place in the 'Vaquita Conservation Zone', though their use continues illegally. ...
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We've got more important things to spend money on -- like oil exploration subsidies.
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Wed, Jan 20, 2010
from Mongabay:
Cheerios maker linked to rainforest destruction
An activist group linked General Mills to destruction of rainforests in Southeast Asia in dramatic fashion on Tuesday, when it unfurled a giant banner, reading "Warning: General Mills Destroys Rainforests", outside the company's Minneapolis headquarters building.
The stunt was executed by the Rainforest Action Network (RAN), an activist group campaigning to highlight the role that palm oil consumption has in deforestation in Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea. Expansion of oil palm plantations over the past twenty years has emerged as one of the biggest threats to the Southeast Asia's rainforests, which house such endangered species as the orangutan, the pygmy elephant of Borneo, and the Sumatran rhino. Palm oil production has also become a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions, which result from deforestation, degradation and conversion of peatlands, and fires set for plantation establishment. ...
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Cheeri-oh-oh!
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Sun, Jan 17, 2010
from San Franscisco Examiner:
Bolivia's Morales plans alternative climate conference
Bolivian President Evo Morales said Tuesday he's inviting activists, scientists and government officials from around the world to an alternative climate conference following the failure of a summit in Copenhagen to produce binding agreements.
The leftist leader said the April 20-22 meeting in Cochabamba will include indigenous peoples, social movements, environmentalists and scientists as well as governments "who want to work with their people."
Morales said the meeting is meant partly to pressure industrialized nations to accept that they have a "climate debt" to poor countries and will work toward an international court on environmental crimes.
Other topics will include a "universal proposal for the rights of mother earth" and the transfer of technology. ...
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What if mother earth was a hermaphrodite?
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Tue, Dec 15, 2009
from George Monbiot, Guardian:
This is bigger than climate change. It is a battle to redefine humanity
The meeting at Copenhagen confronts us with our primal tragedy. We are the universal ape, equipped with the ingenuity and aggression to bring down prey much larger than itself, break into new lands, roar its defiance of natural constraints. Now we find ourselves hedged in by the consequences of our nature, living meekly on this crowded planet for fear of provoking or damaging others. We have the hearts of lions and live the lives of clerks.
The summit's premise is that the age of heroism is over. We have entered the age of accommodation. No longer may we live without restraint. No longer may we swing our fists regardless of whose nose might be in the way. In everything we do we must now be mindful of the lives of others, cautious, constrained, meticulous. We may no longer live in the moment, as if there were no tomorrow.... A new movement, most visible in North America and Australia, but now apparent everywhere, demands to trample on the lives of others as if this were a human right. It will not be constrained by taxes, gun laws, regulations, health and safety, especially by environmental restraints. It knows that fossil fuels have granted the universal ape amplification beyond its Palaeolithic dreams. For a moment, a marvellous, frontier moment, they allowed us to live in blissful mindlessness.
The angry men know that this golden age has gone; but they cannot find the words for the constraints they hate. Clutching their copies of Atlas Shrugged, they flail around, accusing those who would impede them of communism, fascism, religiosity, misanthropy, but knowing at heart that these restrictions are driven by something far more repulsive to the unrestrained man: the decencies we owe to other human beings. ...
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Nobody listens to you, George: you're an environmentalist.
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Fri, Nov 20, 2009
from Foreign Affairs:
Where the Wild Things Were
Ten percent of the world's terrestrial surface is now at least nominally under some kind of protection. National biodiversity assessments and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment have provided useful information on the "state of nature" in various places. The world knows more and is doing more about conservation than in the past.
Nevertheless, the loss of biodiversity -- wildlife, genetic material, ecosystems, and evolutionary processes -- has not abated. The United States has still not ratified the CBD, and the UN system for conservation is still weak, lacking sanctions for states that fail to live up to their commitments. Trade in protected wildlife continues and poaching runs rampant. Funding for conservation remains vanishingly small, and important animal populations and entire species are in grave danger.... Savannah elephants have no exit corridors from East African drought; changes in water availability threaten natural areas and force the rural poor to resettle; migrating birds arrive at the wrong time, finding little food or nesting opportunities; small populations of animals are simply blinking out. ...
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Why worry about biodiversity? Just build more zoos!
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Tue, Nov 10, 2009
from Doc Jim:
From the ApocaDesk
Hundreds packed the IUPUI Campus Center in Indianapolis on Monday afternoon, Nov. 9, to listen to a "professional bummer-outer." Yes, that's what Bill McKibben called himself as he opened his talk.
It was 20 years ago that McKibben published what is now considered the first general-reader book about climate change, The End of Nature. Yet, 20 years later, we are still in the pickle of a lifetime, on the brink of climate collapse for many species on the planet, including our own. It's easy to conclude, here on the eve of Copenhagen climate talks, that no progress has been made as our planet's peril becomes more irrefutable every day.
McKibben, though, is fresh from the success of International Day of Climate Action Day, Oct. 24, instigated by his 350.org group, and is in no bummer-outer mode at all. International Day of Climate Action Day was a world-wide public protest/awareness-raising, that included 5200 actions on planet Earth, all pertaining to a single data point: 350 ppm.
350 ppm is the level of CO2 emissions that our planet can handle -- without stirring up extreme weather patterns or disturbing the hydrologic cycle or causing mass extinction or massive climate migration, etc. You know, the kind of thing we ApocaDocs post every day.
You know that we've already far exceeded 350; we're hovering around 390, in fact, but still, 182 countries were represented and McKibben's slideshow at IUPUI of the actions people made were poignant and inspiring. See www.350.org to see the photos. CNN called it the "most widespread day of political action in the planet's history."
In his talk, McKibben walked us through a short history of consumerism, pointing out that 1956 was the peak year for people responding a survey that they were "very satisfied" with their lives. Now, that number is around one quarter of those surveyed. The reason for this deterioration of happiness is that we've lost our "web of connections." People cite "half the number of friends" that they used to have (and we're not counting the amorphous, quasi-fictional friends we have on Facebook).
Over these 50 years, he says, "We've built bigger and bigger houses farther apart from each other," encouraging that lack of human contact. Meanwhile, the consumer lifestyle created by readily-available (and affordable) fossil fuels is beginning to run out. And the effects of global warming are now visible almost everywhere, from the melting arctic ice to the desertification of Australia.
McKibben says our average global temp has risen one degree -- many scientists believe we'll go up 4 or 5 degrees if we don't change, fast, and McKibben remarks "we don't want to know" what a world like that will be.
To free ourselves from the trap of consumerism, we need to head in a "new direction"... that direction being how we deal with food. McKibben calls food "our basic economy" -- and points out that it's the resurgence of farmers markets that has created the context for people to interact again. Food, he points out, is usually a net gain when it comes to energy issues, but is definitely a plus when it comes to taste as well as the overall experience of buying locally-grown produce, conversing with farmers and growers, as well as other customers.
Given McKibben's activism with Step It Up and now 350.org, this college prof and Sunday School teacher has moved far beyond his role as writer -- and bummer-outer. In fact, McKibben is one of the most vital voices we have, inciting us to think deeply about sustainability and how the "local" is linked to the "global." ...
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McKibben McRocks!
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Sat, Aug 8, 2009
from BBC (UK):
Extinction hits 'whole families'
Whole "chunks of life" are lost in extinction events, as related species vanish together, say scientists.
A study in the journal Science shows that extinctions tend to "cluster" on evolutionary lineages -- wiping out species with a common ancestor.
The finding is based on an examination of past extinctions, but could help current conservation efforts.
Researchers say that this phenomenon can result in the loss of an entire branch of the "tree of life".... "In seabirds for example, the same drivers -- climatic change and habitat loss -- are threatening whole groups of species."
Richard Greyner likened this loss to a fire in a library.
"Because whole sections are lost -- the whole of the physics section, or all of the romantic fiction, the overall loss is much worse than if you randomly burned every 400th book." ...
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'Family' comes between 'Class' and 'Genus' -- and between 'birth' and 'death.'
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Wed, Jul 8, 2009
from Oregon State University, via EurekAlert:
US-Mexico border wall could threaten wildlife species
A 700-mile security wall under construction along the United States' border with Mexico could significantly alter the movement and "connectivity" of wildlife, biologists say, and the animals' potential isolation is a threat to populations of some species.
However, technology and alterations to the design could dramatically improve the potential for animals to move more freely between the two countries, the scientists added.... "The biggest concern is that this barrier will break small populations of animals into even smaller pieces that will result in fewer animals interacting," said Clinton Epps, a wildlife biologist at Oregon State University and co-author on the study. "A major barrier such as this could lead to significant degradation of connectivity for many different species, ultimately threatening their populations." ...
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All we need to do is effectively explain national sovereignty to the wildlife!
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Want more context?
Try reading our book FREE online:
Humoring the Horror of the Converging Emergencies!
More fun than a barrel of jellyfish!
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Sun, Jun 7, 2009
from Montreal Gazette:
Wood stoves blamed for worsening air quality
The number of days of poor air quality on Montreal Island shot up to 68 last year from 44 days during 2007, the city's air-quality watchdogs said Saturday.
The Reseau de surveillance de la qualite de l'air, or RSQA, placed the blame for that deteriorating air-quality performance squarely on fine-particulate air pollution -- largely caused by the use of residential wood heat.
"The contribution of wood heat to fine-particulate emissions continues to grow and amounted in 2006 to about 61 per cent of the total estimated emissions," the body's freshly released eight-page annual report for 2008 states. ...
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The only energy efficient solution to this that I can see is grow lots of body hair!
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Sun, Jun 7, 2009
from Sydney Morning Herald:
Combative lawyer aims to protect the planet
FEW lawyers are ordained as Buddhist priests or give up lucrative careers to take on a single, unfinancial client. But James Thornton, founder of the environmental law firm Client Earth, has done both.
His inspiration comes in part from a meeting years ago with the Dalai Lama, who advised him that environmentalists should meditate, because "solutions never come from an angry mind"... He sees his legal work not as aggressive but as transformative. "Blame isn't so interesting any more. Changing everything is a delightful opportunity," he said... ...
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"Blame" is my middle name.
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Sat, May 30, 2009
from Living on Earth:
Oil on Trial
...Three of the world's biggest oil companies are currently battling environmental human rights lawsuits. The Exxon Mobil case involves Indonesia. The Chevron/Texaco suit is in Ecuador. And the Shell case involves Nigeria. That case is about to go on trial in a New York federal court....Chevron is being sued for 27 billion dollars for polluting the jungle....in Indonesia Exxon Mobile is being sued by some villagers in Ache for human rights violations allegedly committed by soldiers guarding a natural gas plant. ...
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Aw jeez, prices at the pump are gonna go up.
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Wed, May 27, 2009
from SciDev.net:
Change to Ecuador's GM laws 'could allow suicide seeds'
Moves by Ecuador's president to veto legislation covering genetically modified organisms could let controversial 'terminator' seeds into the country, campaigning groups claim.
Ecuador bans the cultivation of genetically modified (GM) crops but for more than a decade it has allowed imports of transgenic materials -- particularly soybean and corn. There are no clear regulations about planting GM crops for research.... Terminator or 'suicide' seeds are modified so they can't reproduce in the second generation. The Convention on Biological Diversity has had a moratorium on them since 2000. Supporters say they stop farmers using seeds they haven't paid for and that their genes cannot spread to conventional crops, unlike other GM seeds. But critics say that terminator seeds will make poor farmers dependent on big companies for seeds.
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Ecuador's "rights of nature" seems in conflict with suicidal tendencies.
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Tue, May 26, 2009
from Washington Post:
In Ecuador, an Unusual Carbon-Credit Plan to Leave Oil Untapped
QUITO, Ecuador -- Beneath the tropical jungles of northeastern Ecuador lies a vast pool of oil, representing one-fifth of the small Andean country's petroleum reserves and potentially billions of dollars in revenue. Directly above that pool, the Yasuni National Park is home to a diversity of wildlife that is among the richest on the planet, Ecuadoran and U.S. biologists say.
Faced with these two treasures, Ecuador is pursuing an unusual plan to reap the oil profits without actually drilling for oil.
The idea envisions wealthy countries effectively paying Ecuador to leave its oil -- and the carbon dioxide that would result from using it -- in the ground. Environmentalists hail the proposal as a potentially precedent-setting approach to conservation in developing countries.
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Don't drill, baby, don't drill!
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Tue, May 19, 2009
from London Guardian:
Peru army moves into Amazon after tribes blockade rivers and roads
Peru's army is poised to deploy in the Amazon rainforest to lift blockades across rivers and roads by indigenous people opposed to oil, gas, logging and mining projects.
The government has authorised the military to move into remote provinces where a state of emergency has been declared in the wake of a month-long stand-off between indigenous people and police... Indigenous groups, backed by environmentalists and Catholic bishops, have protested that the developments will devastate the area's ecology and their culture.
About 65 tribes have mobilised 30,000 people to disrupt roads, waterways and pipelines, leading to skirmishes with police. Up to 41 vessels serving energy companies are stuck along jungle rivers, paralysed by the protests, one private sector source told Reuters. ...
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If this was a movie, the rainforest animals would join forces with the environmentalists.
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Mon, May 18, 2009
from CBC (Canada):
Canada's churches look into impact of oilsands projects
Officials with Kairos, a multi-denominational social justice group, are heading to Fort McMurray to see the impact of development first-hand.
The delegation will spend a week in the region, starting May 21-27.
Church leaders say it's a fact-finding mission, on which they'll speak to a variety of groups with an interest in the oilsands, including the aboriginal community, environmentalists, politicians, the oil and gas industry and those working in the oilsands.... She said the churches have often taken an interest in moral and ethical issues.
"We've tended to look at these in the global picture. We look at what happens elsewhere in the world, [and] in the last couple of years we've really been pressed to say, 'What about what's happening here in Canada?'" she said. ...
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I think it's safe to say that God is on Nature's side.
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Thu, May 7, 2009
from Mongabay:
Chimpanzee population plummets 90 percent in supposedly strong region
A new survey of our closest relatives in the Cote D'Ivoire found that the population fell from an estimated 8,000 to 12,000 individuals to a paltry 800 to 1,200, a decline that took place in less than twenty years.
Perhaps most troubling about this new survey is Cote d'Ivoire was supposed to be a stronghold for chimpanzees in West Africa. The report warns it is likely that similar declines have occurred in other West African nations.
Researchers point to an increase of humans in Cote d'Ivoire as the primary reason. Since 1990 the nation has seen its human population grow by 50 percent. This has lead to increases in poaching and deforestation, activities which target both chimps and their habitat.
"The habitat is gone, and all the protected areas have been invaded by people. It's not just the chimps -- [there's] no animals at all," lead author Genevieve Campbell told National Geographic. ...
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We're running the risk of genus-cide.
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Wed, Apr 8, 2009
from Wall Street Journal:
Pension Funds Fret as Chevron Faces Ecuador Ruling
Big public pension funds are raising concerns about an impending court judgment that could hold Chevron Corp. liable for billions of dollars in alleged environmental damages in the Ecuadorian jungle.
The funds, which together hold $1 billion in Chevron shares, are worried that the oil giant could face as much as $27 billion in damages in the 15-year-old class-action case, which was filed by a U.S. law firm on behalf of thousands of indigenous Ecuadorians.
The lawsuit, being tried in the Amazonian town of Lago Agrio, alleges that Texaco polluted waterways and wells across a vast area of Ecuador by dumping billions of gallons of oil waste into leaky pits during 20 years of operations there. Chevron acquired Texaco in 2001 for about $30 billion. ...
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Bought it for 30 billion bucks... settlement could be 27 billion bucks... they still come out ahead!
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Mon, Mar 23, 2009
from Denver Post:
Nestle plan sets off water war
A plan to suck, truck and bottle Arkansas Valley spring water has residents here crusading against the world's largest food and beverage company.
"Nestle is seeking to drain the blood of Chaffee County," said Salida local Daniel Zettler during a fiery public hearing last week.
Nestle -- with 12 U.S. brands of bottled water and almost $4.3 billion in North American sales in 2007 -- came calling for Arkansas Valley spring water about two years ago. The company wants to draw 65 million gallons a year from an aquifer feeding two freshwater springs near Nathrop, pipe it 5 miles to a truck stop and ship it 100 miles to a Denver bottling facility. It would be sold under the company's Arrowhead brand. ...
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Sing with me now... Nestle makes the very best ... bottled water...
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Tue, Mar 10, 2009
from WCSH6 (ME):
Shapleigh Passes Ordinance To Protect Groundwater
The town of Shapleigh voted Saturday to pass an ordinance that gives the people the right to control the water resources in town.
Under the ordinance, groundwater is put in a common trust to be used for the benefit of its residents. The vote was 114 in favor and 66 against.
Shapleigh is the first town in Maine to pass such an ordinance. It's a reaction to Poland Spring's interest in extracting town groundwater. ...
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I'll drink from my recycled bottle to the rights of nature!
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Sun, Mar 8, 2009
from New Scientist:
Conservationists deciding which species to survive
Would the animal have made it into the ark? That's the kind of question conservationists have been asking when it comes to the thorny issue of picking which threatened species to save.... In the 1990s, Weitzman devised a formula for prioritising species for conservation. This considers the cost of saving a species, how useful or genetically diverse it is, and the increase in its chance of survival if chosen.... The aim is to figure out where money would make a difference, says co-author Karin Holm-Muller of the University of Bonn in Germany. "If a cattle breed is not at risk, or if there is no chance of changing anything, don't put money into it." ...
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With that logic, we have no reason for putting money into saving the human species.
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Thu, Mar 5, 2009
from New York Times:
Grass-Roots Uprising Against River Dam Challenges Tokyo
First, the farmers objected to an ambitious dam project proposed by the government, saying they did not need irrigation water from the reservoir. Then the commercial fishermen complained that fish would disappear if the Kawabe River's twisting torrents were blocked. Environmentalists worried about losing the river's scenic gorges. Soon, half of this city's 34,000 residents had signed a petition opposing the $3.6 billion project. In September, this rare grassroots uprising scored an even rarer victory when the governor of Kumamoto prefecture, a mountainous area of southern Japan, formally asked Tokyo to suspend construction. The Construction Ministry agreed, temporarily halting an undertaking that had already relocated a half-dozen small villages, though work on the dam itself had not started.
The suspension grabbed national headlines as one of the first times a local governor had succeeded in blocking a megaproject being built by the central government. ...
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Ecuador... now Japan... People are fighting back!
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You're still reading! Good for you!
You really should read our short, funny, frightening book FREE online (or buy a print copy):
Humoring the Horror of the Converging Emergencies!
We've been quipping this stuff for more than 30 months! Every day!
Which might explain why we don't get invited to parties anymore.
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Sun, Feb 15, 2009
from Washington University, via Eurek:
Biologist discusses sacred nature of sustainability
Like all religious traditions, religious naturalism is anchored in a cosmological narrative, a set of stories accounting how the earth and its inhabitants came to be.
While conventional religions are generally based on older cosmological narratives such as those found in the Old and New Testaments, religious naturalism is based on a much more recent narrative.... She explains, "In more and more mainstream religions, you're seeing an increased emphasis on the earth and its creatures as sacred." This paradigm shift is due, at least in part, to a growing awareness that the old stories might not be sufficient to frame an ethic that alters the environment's current trajectory. She suggests that the new story offers a basis for understanding what a sustainable trajectory might look like. ...
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Sustainability by any other name ["Creation Care," "ecomorality," "common sense"] still smells like sweet survival.
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Tue, Feb 3, 2009
from Globe and Mail (Canada):
Personal-care chemicals go on toxic list
The federal government is placing on its toxic substances list two silicone-based chemicals that are widely used in shampoos and conditioners, where they help give hair the silky, smooth feeling often played up in advertisements for these personal care products.
It is the first time any country has taken such regulatory action against the substances, called D4 and D5 by the silicone industry, that are also in hundreds of personal-care products ranging from deodorants to skin moisturizers.... [Ottawa] decided to designate the substances as dangerous, based on fears that they were a threat to wildlife when they get into the environment from the disposal of consumer products and from industrial releases. ...
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You mean poisoning the environment is dangerous? But what about business?
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Tue, Feb 3, 2009
from Ecological Society of America, via EurekAlert:
Ecologists report quantifiable measures of nature's services to humans
Some of the best-described ecosystem services include pollination of crops, flood and storm protection, water filtration and recreation. The challenging part is translating these services into something with a measurable value. Economic valuation methods take changes in the supply of ecosystem services and translate these into changes in human welfare.... The InVEST software has also shown that high levels of biodiversity often go hand-in-hand with the provision of more ecosystem services, suggesting that the preservation of biodiversity will enhance ecosystem services. This correlation is also reflected in the success of ecosystem service projects: The authors report that although conservation initiatives that focus on ecosystem services are still in their infancy, many are as successful as traditional biodiversity preservation approaches, and can often garner as much or more funding from the private sector. ...
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Ecosystem services -- "nature as janitor." Maybe paying minimum wage is a little risky. What if the janitor just quits?
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Tue, Jan 27, 2009
from Salt Lake Tribune:
In climate fight, a time for civil disobedience?
Take the train. Dial down your heat. Write your senator.
Taking those individual steps surely helps in the battle against global warming. But, scientists and advocates warn, it's no longer enough to fend off climate disaster.
Get ready, some of them say, to hijack oil-lease sales (like a college student did in Utah), to climb smokestacks in protest (like Greenpeace activists did in England), to trespass at power plants (like demonstrators plan to do in Washington, D.C.).
It's time, these environmentalists say, for some good, old-fashioned civil disobedience -- the types of nonviolent acts proven effective by the famous (Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks) and the faceless (students at Tiananmen Square, anti-war protesters on college campuses, women suffragists in street marches). ...
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You mean I can't just e-mail and text and answer polls to save the earth?
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Thu, Jan 22, 2009
from SciDev.net:
Peruvian region outlaws biopiracy
LIMA, Peru -- A region of Peru is claiming to be the first in the world to enact a law outlawing biopiracy and protecting indigenous knowledge at a regional level.
Cusco -- in the Peruvian Andes, once the capital of the Inca Empire -- has outlawed the plundering of native species for commercial gain, including patenting resources or the genes they contain.
Corporations or scientists must now seek permission from, and potentially share benefits with, the local people whose traditions have protected the species for centuries.
Indigenous communities can now implement ways to protect local resources, including creating registers of biodiversity and protocols for granting access to it. ...
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One small step for humankind, one giant leap for the rights of nature.
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Tue, Jan 13, 2009
from Telegraph.co.uk:
Greenpeace buys Heathrow land earmarked for airport's third runway
Campaigners opposed to a third runway at Heathrow have bought a parcel of the land earmarked for the airport's expansion and are preparing for a fierce legal battle to defend it.
The Government is expected to approve the new runway this week, along with a sixth terminal -- although there was speculation last night that a decision could be delayed after Gordon Brown agreed to meet Labour backbenchers opposed to the project. The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats both oppose the plans, as do dozens of environmental groups.
Greenpeace has bought a field the size of a football pitch and plans to invite protesters to dig networks of tunnels across it, similar to those built in the ultimately unsuccessful campaign against the Newbury bypass in 1996. The group also plans to divide the field into thousands of tiny plots, each with a separate owner. BAA, the airport's owner, would be forced to negotiate with each owner, lengthening the compulsory purchase process. ...
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Have you no respect for authority!?
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Tue, Jan 6, 2009
from Wildlife Conservation Society via ScienceDaily:
New Park Protects Penguins And Other Marine Life In Argentina
The Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society has just announced that its efforts to protect a wildlife-rich coastal region in South America have paid off in the form of a new coastal marine park recently signed into law by the Government of Argentina. The park, which became official in early December protects half a million penguins along with several species of rare seabirds and the region’s only population of South American fur seals. It is the first protected area in Argentina specifically designed to safeguard not only onshore breeding colonies but also areas of ocean where wildlife feed at sea. ...
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Great idea! Let's just make earth one giant park!
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Sun, Jan 4, 2009
from Huffington Post:
Tennessee's Toxic Nightmare: Arsenic Levels 35 to 300 Times EPA Standard for Drinking Water
Just-released independent water sampling data from the Tennessee coal ash disaster has shown alarmingly high levels of arsenic and seven other heavy metals, including cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury and thallium.
"I've never seen levels this high," said Dr. Shea Tuberty, Assistant Professor of Biology at the Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry Lab at Appalachian State University. "These levels would knock out fish reproduction ... the ecosystems around Kingston and Harriman are going to be in trouble ... maybe for generations." ...
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This is the Exxon Valdez of 2008. But who's the drunken sailor?
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Fri, Dec 26, 2008
from Washington Post:
Report: Alberta Mines Imperil Birds
About half of America's migratory birds fly from destinations as far-flung as Chile to nest in Canada's boreal forest. In Alberta, that forest lies above tar sands that contain oil reserves second only to Saudi Arabia's.
The excavation of the tar sands -- projected to pump $2.4 trillion into Canada's economy between 2010 and 2030 -- could reduce the region's migratory-bird population by almost half, according to a peer-reviewed study released Dec. 2 by U.S. and Canadian environmental groups.... The study estimates that over 30 to 50 years, tar sands excavation will reduce bird populations by anywhere from 6 million to 166 million, including several endangered and threatened species. ...
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Haven't these birds ever heard of a detour?
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Mon, Dec 22, 2008
from University of Missouri-Columbia via ScienceDaily:
Selflessness -- Core Of All Major World Religions -- Has Neuropsychological Connection
All spiritual experiences are based in the brain. That statement is truer than ever before, according to a University of Missouri neuropsychologist. An MU study has data to support a neuropsychological model that proposes spiritual experiences associated with selflessness are related to decreased activity in the right parietal lobe of the brain....This study, along with other recent neuroradiological studies of Buddhist meditators and Francescan nuns, suggests that all individuals, regardless of cultural background or religion, experience the same neuropsychological functions during spiritual experiences, such as transcendence. ...
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To pull off saving the earth, we're going to need all the selflessness and transcendence we can get!
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Fri, Oct 3, 2008
from 350:
Ecuador votes to grant rights to nature
...On Sunday, two thirds of Ecuador's citizens voted to approve a new Constitution, which notably includes a set of unprecedented articles that guarantee 'inalienable rights to nature'. The articles appear to be the first of their kind, and have sparked a global conversation... ...
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Now all we have to do is spread the word!
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Wed, Sep 24, 2008
from London Guardian:
A new law of nature
The South American republic of Ecuador will next week consider what many countries in the world would say is unthinkable. People will be asked to vote on Sunday on a new constitution that would give Ecuador's tropical forests, islands, rivers and air similar legal rights to those normally granted to humans. If they vote yes - and polls show that 56 percent are for and only 23 percent are against - then an already approved bill of rights for nature will be introduced, and new laws will change the legal status of nature from being simply property to being a right-bearing entity. ...
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This, my friends, is the one, true revolution.
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Thu, Sep 11, 2008
from London Independent:
Cleared: Jury decides that threat of global warming justifies breaking the law
The threat of global warming is so great that campaigners were justified in causing more than £35,000 worth of damage to a coal-fired power station, a jury decided yesterday. In a verdict that will have shocked ministers and energy companies the jury at Maidstone Crown Court cleared six Greenpeace activists of criminal damage.
Jurors accepted defence arguments that the six had a "lawful excuse" to damage property at Kingsnorth power station in Kent to prevent even greater damage caused by climate change. ...
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You mean the Earth does come first?
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Sat, Jul 26, 2008
from Orange County Register:
Sites endangered by global warming
"That dream vacation -- diving along the Great Barrier Reef, skiing in the Swiss Alps -- could remain a dream forever if you don't get a move on... It's been called climate sightseeing, a kind of farewell tour of Earth's greatest hits. The subject is full of paradoxes: The more you travel, for example, the more you're contributing to the problem that made you go to an endangered site in the first place." ...
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But isn't it our right to destroy the planet?
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Fri, May 9, 2008
from Salt Lake Tribune:
Beleaguered Utah prairie dog needs greater protection, or faces extinction
In the third management area, its supposed stronghold in the West Desert, numbers will quickly plummet if plans go through to translocate some of the largest remaining populations, such as at the Cedar Ridge golf course in Cedar City. While FWS rallied for the condor, crane and ferret, the agency has turned its back on the Utah prairie dog. It refers to Utah prairie dogs as a nuisance, characterizes its numbers as exploding in the spring (although scientists report low reproduction rates), and allows hundreds to be moved every year. Fewer than 10 percent of the animals survive translocation. They are simply being thrown away. ...
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Pesky endangered species. Wish the EPA and FWS would just get rid of 'em.
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Wed, Feb 6, 2008
from Charleston City Paper:
Should we be taxed for eating animals?
"The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization found in 2006 that livestock production generates 18 percent of greenhouse gases worldwide -- more than the entire transportation sector of cars, trucks, planes, and ships combined. Cows constantly belch methane from their four stomachs, and lagoons of pig effluent release the gas into the air. Much of the world's beef comes from deforested areas (70 percent of former Amazon rainforest is now used for cattle grazing), a one-two punch from the loss of carbon dioxide-absorbing trees and the addition of more animals. Meat and dairy production is predicted by the U.N. to double in the next 40 years, a growth PETA feels could be abated by a 10-cent tax on each pound of meat." ...
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Surely this 10 percent increase would do wonders for the animals' self-esteem.
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