Category Archives: Human Impact

Forest Services tries to cover its tracks on Wolf Creek

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It is not surprising that the U. S. Forest Service sided with a wealthy developer rather than with the resource and the public. Are we angry yet?

Bob Berwyn's avatarSummit County Citizens Voice

saf A controversial plan to develop private real estate near Wolf Creek Ski Area is on hold for now.

Paper trail shows agency hid and likely destroyed records related to controversial development proposal in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains

Staff Report

Environmental and community activists opposed to a massive real estate development in southern Colorado say they have new evidence that the U.S. Forest Service tried to cover up how political influence tainted several steps of the approval process for the project.

A review of more than 60,000 pages documents obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request and a subsequent court order shows that the Forest Service deliberately concealed and destroyed records related to the Village at Wolf Creek development project.

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Five trends that will define the world’s forests in 2016

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From drought to economic slowdown, 2016 promises a mixed bag for the world’s forests.  theconversation.com

GR:  Here are five important issues that set the stage for the future of our forests.  I want to add two even more important issues.  We must accept that the stage itself is changing as global warming continues and the growing human population’s demand for food increases.  Perhaps it’s a passing mood, but today the outlook for our forests and all their creatures appears dark.  Their demise is accelerating, and it just seems that too few people care enough to take action to reduce our population or its needs.

Balancing hydropower and biodiversity in the Amazon, Congo, and Mekong

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Dam Construction in Brazil

Construction of Santo Antônio Dam in Brazil

GR:  Why don’t conservationists give up their pleas for river ecosystems.  After a century of effort, they should have learned that investors will do nothing that might jeopardize profits.

From Science Policy Forum:  “The world’s most biodiverse river basins—the Amazon, Congo, and Mekong—are experiencing an unprecedented boom in hydropower dam construction. These projects address important energy needs, but advocates often overestimate economic benefits and underestimate far-reaching effects on biodiversity and critically important fisheries.

“We call for more sophisticated and holistic hydropower planning, including validation of technologies intended to mitigate environmental impacts.” –Authored by 38 scientists.

Brazil inflames forest fires with pro-deforestation laws

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New laws under consideration will likely spark more tree-cutting − despite serious drought already contributing to a big increase in vast destructive fires.

Of last year’s fires, 8,000 occurred in the central region, where the states of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia share borders. This area, which encroaches on the cerrado, a vast tropical savanna ecoregion that is one of Brazil’s most threatened biomes, has become a fast-developing new agricultural powerhouse, producing soy, maize and cotton.  From: www.climatechangenews.com

GR:  Toxic wastes, global warming, livestock grazing, and farming are eliminating forests, shrublands, grasslands, and soils.  The losses are heartbreaking.  The realization that instead of slowing or stopping the losses are accelerating is dumbfounding.

Numbers dwindle at Mexico’s mountain of butterflies

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“The number of Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) wintering in Mexico plunged this year to its lowest level since studies began in 1993, leading experts to announce Wednesday that the insects’ annual migration from the United States and Canada is in danger of disappearing.

“A study released by the World Wildlife Fund, Mexico’s Environment Department and the Natural Protected Areas Commission blames the displacement of the milkweed the species feeds on by genetically modified crops and urban sprawl in the United States, as well as the dramatic reduction of the butterflies’ habitat in Mexico due to illegal logging of the trees they depend on for shelter.”  From: www.theguardian.com

GR:  This Guardian story is worth repeating. It covers the situation very well. It highlights the conservation failure of NAFTA and the disastrous consequences of Monsanto’s war on wildlife. Of course, the Monarch, like the Honey Bees, is just one of the many species being destroyed by pesticides and destructive harvest of the natural environment.

Deepwater Horizon On Land: Porter Ranch’s Neverending Gas Leak Prompts California State of Emergency

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Porter Ranch activists opposing fossil fuels.

Dec. 12 demonstration at the SoCalGas Porter Ranch site (Alan Weiner, 350.org)

GR:  Energy industry lies might be the most reprehensible in their consequences for the global environment and all its species. However, they resemble the lies told by the chemical industry about pesticides, the lies told by the financial institutions about economic affairs, the lies told by the arms industry about the need for weapons and military support in other countries, the lies told by the insurance industry in its efforts to collect premiums but not fulfill obligations, and the lies of our elected representatives who protect the corporations that fund their power and lifestyles. The cumulative effect of the lies by our major corporations (e.g., VW) is that people are losing respect for the industries they support through their labor and consumption. I don’t think “Made in America” means what it did when I was a beginning consumer. Here are a few stories on divesting as a means to limit the power of our untrustworthy industries (https://garryrogers.com/?s=divest&submit=Search).

robertscribbler's avatarrobertscribbler

It’s the gas leak that just won’t end. One whose impacts have now become so wide-ranging that it has prompted California governor Brown to issue a declaration of emergency. But, even with vast state resources now in place to help deal with this disaster, the impacts are likely to be long-lasting and far-reaching. Serious impacts both to public health and to California’s contribution to global atmospheric, oceanic, and glacial warming.

A Dangerous Industry With Long-Lasting Impacts

(The Environmental Defense Fund issued this aerial infrared footage of a massive gas leak at Porter Ranch, California. In total, more than 250 million pounds of the gas has already leaked from the disaster site — increasing California’s greenhouse gas emissions by more than 25 percent, sickening hundreds of local residents, and forcing the evacuation of more than 2,000 homes. Video Source: The Environmental Defense Fund.)

Poking holes in the Earth or…

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Growing demand for rice and palm oil ‘driving mangrove deforestation’

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“Over 100,000 hectares of forest cover lost in South-East Asia between 2000 and 2012, study finds.”  from: www.ibtimes.co.uk

GR:  This is why humans have to go.

 

NASA: Worst of El Nino Still to Come. With Climate Change in the Mix, 2015-2016 Event May Equal Most Devastating On Record

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GR:  Perhaps a year of extremes will help bring more people to their senses. Human population pressure (building, farming, logging, grazing, poisoning) has eliminated half of Earth’s accumulated genetic marvels. With population pressure continuing, and with human-caused climate change creating relatively sudden habitat changes, many more of our fellow creatures will surely be lost. Some of the finest minds I’ve encountered have fought for climate prudence. So far, they have failed to slow the change. I’m hopeful that this year’s weather will lend them a hand. Human activities are battering our ecosystems. Harsh weather will be harmful too, but worth it if it wakes up a few more of our too gullible citizens. [So it has to be “like” for me.]

robertscribbler's avatarrobertscribbler

Like and not like.

When we look at the 2015-2016 El Nino and compare it with the 1997-1998 monster we find both similarities and differences.

First the differences. The 2015-2016 El Nino is firing off in a global atmosphere that is on the order of 0.25 C hotter than 1997-1998. It’s an event that’s spring-boarding off an unprecedented hot blob of water in the Northeastern Pacific. One that some studies have linked to human-forced climate change and that has been associated with a plethora of ills ranging from failing ocean health, to the California drought, to strange and troubling warm air and water invasions entering the Arctic. It’s an event that’s occurring in the context of yet another extreme warm air invasion of the Arctic now ongoing in the North Atlantic. And, likely, it’s an event that has, overall, been torqued and twisted by the ongoing pressure of atmospheric…

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What Exxon Knew, Texaco and Other Oil Companies Knew Too

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All the Oil Companies Knew

GR:  Hard evidence shows that our major oil companies knew the damage they were doing and it shows that they spent money to hide the evidence. Now if we can prove  damages, we can prosecute the oil companies for reparations. Winning will force energy producers to cut CO2 emissions and to compensate their victims.

The big question is whether the oil businesses have enough money to subvert national legal systems and prevent prosecution of the corporations and their directors. Will this be like the bank bailouts where we gave the criminals financial rewards?

Peter Sinclair of Climate Denial Crocks submitted the following story. The video and the full story linked to Sinclair’s item are well worth watching.

What Exxon Knew, Texaco Knew, Too

“And so did Chevron, Amoco, Phillips, Shell, Sunoco and Sohio.  Newest installment in the incredible and tragic saga of what the oil industry knew about climate change, and when they knew it – the most under-reported story of 2015.

“A snip here, but go to the link for the whole piece. And if you haven’t yet, check the video above, and go to Inside Climate News to follow up on the whole story.”

Inside Climate News:

An InsideClimate News investigative series has shown that Exxon launched its own cutting-edge CO2 sampling program in 1978 in order to understand a phenomenon it suspected could harm its business. About a decade later, Exxon spearheaded campaigns to cast doubt on climate science and stall regulation of greenhouse gases. The previously unpublished papers about the climate task force indicate that API, (American Petroleum Institute) the industry’s most powerful lobbying group, followed a similar arc to Exxon’s in confronting the threat of climate change.

Just as Exxon began tracking climate science in the late 1970s, when only small groups of scientists in academia and the government were engaged in the research, other oil companies did the same, the documents show.”