A new report from WWF-UK warns exploitation of North America’s tar sands [search] and oil shale [search] could increase atmospheric CO2 levels by up to 15%. They release as much as eight times as much carbon as petroleum. Over-reaction to gasoline prices [search] going up a couple bucks in the rich world may lead to the catastrophic embrace of these unconventional and highly-polluting fossil fuels.

Ecological Internet has been working on the issue for years [more]. We are pleased to now join with WWF (so right on climate, so wrong on forests) in their recent call for an end to the production of tar sand and oil shale fuels [ark | more\ark]. These "carbon bomb" fuels can only perpetuate a deadly fossil fuel addiction, delaying transition to clean renewable energy, and ensuring Earth's climate is irreversibly damaged. They must be banned now before we become dependent.

Continue reading "Tar Sands and Oil Shale will Destroy the Climate to Save a Couple Bucks at the Pump" »

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Clayoquot Sound, Canada's Ancient Temperate Rainforest Valleys to Again Fall to Logging. These ancient forests must be fully protected and all industrial development ended to preserve biodiversity and ecosystem health, focusing upon employment from standing trees and fully intact ecosystems, and failure to do will lead to a renewed "War of the Woods" and global anti-B.C. markets campaign

TAKE ACTION! Canada's precious temperate rainforests [search] are again threatened with industrial logging. Clayoquot Sound [search], which lies along the West coast of British Columbia (B.C.), is a spectacular mosaic of lush coastal rainforests, fjord-like inlets and islands covering 850,000 acres. Such intact coastal temperate rainforests are globally rare, covering only about one-fifth of one percent of the Earth’s land area, half of which has already been destroyed. They are amongst the most biologically productive temperate ecosystems in the world. Clayoquot Sound is the most magnificent expression of temperate rainforest in North America.

There is no such thing as ecologically sustainable industrial logging or other industrial activities in a fully intact ancient forest ecosystem. Ancient forest logging must end worldwide to solve climate change, protect all biodiversity and achieve global ecological sustainability. Encourage all involved in British Columbia's forest policy to commit themselves fully to developing methods for employment and community advancement based upon standing forests and fully intact ecosystems. Or else promise you support a return to the blockades and protests that halted logging in Clayoquot in 1993, as well as a massive overseas campaign targeting B.C.'s markets. Surely rich Canada can find a way to spare Clayoquot Sound's vital ecosystems.TAKE ACTION!

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Let the Kenyan government know destroying ecosystems for toxic sugar monocultures is unethical, and ask them to please follow their own environmental laws, and permanently cancel the project

TAKE ACTION! Kenya has recently approved plans to destroy some 20,000 acres of the globally important and ecologically sensitive Tana Delta for sugar and biofuel production [search]. Covering 130,000 hectares, these wetlands' diverse riverine vegetation -- forests, swamps, dunes, beaches and ocean -- will be forever altered by widespread vast fields of toxic, monoculture sugar cane and biofuel mill. The project threatens 350 species including birds, lions, hippos, nesting turtles, elephants, sharks, reptiles and the Tana red colobus, one of 25 primates facing extinction globally. Biofuel production worldwide continues to destroy crucial natural ecosystems [search] required for local and global sustainability. While hailed as a climate change remedy, this destruction of natural habitats for biofuel production almost always releases more carbon than saved. Using food such as sugar for fuel has raised food prices, leading to riots globally, including in Kenya. Please respectfully request the project be permanently cancelled. TAKE ACTION!

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Continued industrial forestry [search] in combination with surging greenhouse gas emissions [search] are forming a vicious cycle, whose climate/ecosystem positive feedbacks [search] are destroying more forests while releasing carbon. We know deforestation changes climate [ark | search], yet modern forest management techniques treat forests like tree plantations, and have decimated forest structure and dynamics making them more fire prone. Overlaid upon this has been climate change caused drought and heat which makes damaged canopies all the more prone to cataclysmic crown fires.

California has been hit by 2,000 fires this year [ark] and things will get worse. We simply must allow much more forest landscapes there and globally to regenerate old-growth features and prohibit industrial forestry there and in remaining primary forests, while dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Failure will herald in massive lightening storms causing hellish wildfires [ark] bearing down upon ourselves and our families.

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The extent to which wetlands are responsible for climate change [ark | more\ark] is becoming dreadfully clear. A recent international conference reveals wetlands [search] contain 771 billion tons of greenhouse gases, one-fifth of all the carbon on Earth, equal to the amount of carbon now in the atmosphere. And now we learn that should wetlands continue to be casually destroyed, it may well release a "carbon bomb" that dramatically amplifies climate change and general ecological collapse.

Wetlands are required for a livable Earth. They account for 6 percent of Earth's land surface, yet produce 25 percent of the world's food, purify water, recharge aquifers and act as buffers against violent coastal storms. About 60 percent of the Earth's wetlands have been destroyed in the past century, mostly through drainage for agriculture. This self-destructive behavior, destroying what seems to be "wastelands", is bereft of ecological understanding, and is one of the most dangerous of many activities dismantling the physical ecological systems upon which life depends.

Continue reading "Wetlands a Potential Carbon Bomb" »

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A first of its kind global assessment has found one third of reef-building corals face extinction because of climate change [ark | more\ark]. Climate change brings rising water temperatures and more intense solar radiation, which leads to coral bleaching and disease, often exacerbated by nutrient rich water run-off from denuded lands. Together the result is often mass coral mortality. Add this to acidic oceans [search], ocean dead zones [search] and widespread over-fishing [search] and it is clear we are witnessing the climate-mediated collapse of ocean ecosystems [search].

Death of coral reefs from climate change is not theory or conjecture of what might happen if we continue relentlessly emitting greenhouse gases. This is but the most recent evidence that climate change continues to unravel the biological foundation of existence, acting in conjunction with and magnifying forces such as habitat destruction, water diminishment and ocean decline. This biological homogenization [search] is happening now, in front of our eyes, and the processes and ramifications are known and understood by ecological science. Let us be clear: ecosystems which provide our sustenance are dying because of what we do. What level of destruction will it take to awaken the global consciousness?

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The wild and free Xingu River is critical to maintaining intact the Amazon, its peoples and the Earth we share

TAKE ACTION! The Brazilian government is planning to build what would be the world´s third largest dam on the Xingu River in the Brazilian Amazon [search]. The Xingu River in northeast Brazil is a tributary of the Amazon River. The Belo Monte Dam, meant principally to fuel the expansion of aluminum foundries and other industrial plants in the Amazon, would require diverting nearly the entire flow of the Xingu, drying up the “Big Bend” of the Xingu and its tributary, the Bacajá, home to hundreds of indigenous people. Native people upstream would also be affected by the dam´s impacts on fish stocks, their principal food source.TAKE ACTION!

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Nothing is more causative or indicative of America's ecological unsustainability [search] (and the rest of the rich world) than selfish splurging upon ridiculously large McMansions [search]. These resource hungry homes generally sprawl into natural habitats, fouling water, and require huge amounts of fossil fuel derived energy to power their pigishness. Conspicuous consumption [search] of this sort is killing the Earth.

The new chic is LEEDs certified ecologically sustainable building of right-sized homes [ark] using recycled materials and that generate their own energy. It is critical efforts to build ecologically sustainable homes [search] become more widely implemented and affordable. And let's not lose site of how much Earthly good can come from simple retrofitting of current habitations.

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Just back from a short blogging break, to find the climate crisis never rests. Scientists and policy-makers have finally caught up with ecology as the link between climate change and extreme weather [ark | more\ark | search] -- such as the recent flooding and tornadoes in the U.S. -- has been reaffirmed. The only surprise is the new report was released and endorsed by the Bush administration, whose climate obstruction over the past decade has bordered upon criminality. To issue such a serious report after a decade of inaction is unconscionable, and can only be forgiven if the administration swings into real climate change policy action now.

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PRESS RELEASE

15% protection of last large intact forest ecosystems, and promotion of continued ancient forest diminishment, are insufficient to maintain Earth's ecosystems, climate, biosphere and human advancement.

This week the Democratic Republic of Congo announced new protections for 10% of their rainforest [ark] , moving towards Brazil's goal of 15% preservation of the Amazon. WWF and other environmental groups hailed 85% industrial destruction and diminishment of the rest of the world's remaining large forest ecosystems as good news. At the UN biodiversity talks in Bonn, WWF organized non-binding national pledges to end deforestation [ark], ignoring biological simplification caused by industrial forestry. WWF promotes first-time ancient primary forest logging [search] which is nearly as bad ecologically as total deforestation. These inadequate responses come as a new study shows ecosystem loss is already costing hundreds of billions [ark] of dollars a year.

Ecological Internet is committed -- as keystone responses to the climate, biodiversity, water and food crises -- to ending all industrial development of the world's remaining primary and natural ecosystems, and committing to strict protection for half of the world's land and sea as global ecological reserves. The remainder will need to be ecologically managed to sustainably meet human needs in perpetuity. This will require massive ecological restoration and protection of forest remnants in over-developed countries, and major new protected areas (increased by 3-5 times) in countries holding the Earth's remaining primary natural habitats.

Continue reading "WWF's Rainforest Protection Goals Prolong Ecological Decline" »

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